Monday, September 22, 2008

You Must Perform Website Maintenance In Order To Grow

By TheWebsiteDesignStore.com: Bill King


Before you consider a new website design determine the budget and the method whereby website maintenance will be performed. Consider the website maintenance first when deciding on a website design. The website maintenance is an afterthought when most businesses have a new website designed since they do not evaluate how often the updates will need to be performed.

It may be more effective and efficient to contract a website design store to build and maintain a business website. This act alone could free up valuable employee or business owner resources to allow them to perform other needed business functions. The website maintenance store protects the business from neglecting the website and stagnating growth.

1. Check the quality of their work. Can they provide you with references and examples of their work? Testimonials and portfolios can be indicators of quality. Cheap isn't always best.

2. Are they willing to provide you with an estimate of time for the work want? Even when billed at an hourly rate, there should be an estimate. Ask if there is a minimum number of hours required.

3. Do not use someone who will not be available to provide website maintenance for you in the future. If you choose an individual that gets a new job or graduates in the future than you may have to pay more for someone new to figure out any special code. The advantage of a website maintenance store is that your website is archived and can be retrieved for future updates or website design changes.

4. Your website can be created by anyone in the world so location is not as big of a factor when choosing a website design store. Quality, communication, and integrity are however very important. Make sure that there are no barriers preventing you and the website designer from communicating. Make sure the website design store that you select is subject to the laws of your country in the event of an unresolved dispute.

If you want new and repeat visitors to your website, you have to add new content to your webpage. Most of us want to expand our business reach, and frequent webpage updates give previous visitors a reason to come back and new visitors a reason to visit your website for the first time. Frequent webpage updates on your website provide you a more satisfied and knowledgeable client and could mean more sales for your business.

An effective way to maintain your website content and keep it fresh is by adding a newsletter or article section to your existing website. This is a great way to offer changing website content without distracting your customers from your product offerings or changing the core message on your primary website pages. It does work. The popularity of blog, forum and social websites is phenomenal. Do a Google or Yahoo search on almost any subject and you will see results from these types of websites come up high in the search results. People are interested in fresh and helpful content that is interesting and relevant. If you need traffic to your website and want to have your own blog or article website, there are many good books on the subject or you can use a professional website design store to create one for you.

If you do not use a website maintenance store and you do not have the website design experience to maintain a blog or forum for your business that does not change the fact that your website content needs to change to be search engine friendly. If you feel that a website maintenance store does not give you the ROI that you are looking for then you need to have your website design store install a content management system that will provide a simplified interface so that you can make the website maintenance updates yourself.

Remember, that these are introductory steps to improving your business but they work!

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